In short terms:
- Phys. HDD/Raid LUN/SAN are formated with the VMFS filesystem
- These Filesystem becomes a "Datastore". ESXi can have up to 255 datastores
- Every Datastore can hold more than one VM
- On ESXi 5.5 a VM can have up to 60 vDisks
- A vDisk in "just" a container file named *.vmdk and is stored in the Datastore on the VMFS
- On default all components of a VM are stored together in a folder which is located on the Datastore
So press the button "Create VM"
- Select the type (Windows, Linux)
- Select the Datastore
- Modify the Components (vCPU, vMem, vNIC, vDisk)
- You can select "Thin provisioning" for the vDisk, it starts with little space needed and than grows when needed. But be warned when youre running out of space in the datastore)
- A vDisk can expand manually during runtime
- You have to add an ISO to the vCDROM to start with a OS installation
Regards,
Joerg